When a Sleigh Ride Is Not Something to Sing about: Kamouraska

On cold nights like this one, my thoughts turn to images of winter that have found a place in my imagination, waiting out the good weather to come from the shadows when the wind blows the snow in drifts.

One of them is the scene in Claude Jutra's movie of Anne Hébert's terrific nevel Kamouraska.  Based on the true story of the 1838 murder of Seigneur of Kamouraska, by an American doctor   in love with the Seigneur's wife, Hebert's novel shows us a  respectably married woman remembering her great passion and the murder of he first husband.  

Much of the action takes place inside Elisabeth Rolland's head as she waits beside the bed of her dying second husband.  The style is stream of consciousness at times, and it can take some effort to figure out just what is happening,   But it contains an engrossing, frigtening account of how the doctor fled with his rival's body across the snow-blasted countryside of the Lower St. Lawrence that by itself is worth taking the time to unravel the story.  

Hébert wrote in French but the English translation by Norman Shapiro captures some of the original text's force and beauty.  And Jutra's film is breathtakingly beautiful, as well as considerbly clearer than the novel. For a while it was unavailable on video, but I found this (possibly pirated) copy on Youtube.